


Daughters of Death

by ShepardCommander



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-12-04 03:53:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11546952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShepardCommander/pseuds/ShepardCommander
Summary: The distance of a galaxy and a few hundred years isn’t enough for Vetra to put the past behind, no matter how hard she tries. Digging through the Initiative’s archives, she stumbles across records pulled directly from the Citadel’s database, encountering a name, a person, that she thought she had lost forever.





	Daughters of Death

Saren Arterius.

Vetra Nyx’s taloned hand hovered above the holographic interface of her omni-tool, the monitor that hung at eyelevel on the wall above her desk patiently waiting for her command. A single name decorated the screen, burning a brilliant pale blue atop a backdrop of dark sea green, representing a file buried deep so deep inside the Initiative’s archives that Vetra hadn’t been entirely confident that it existed at all.

Finding it hadn’t been easy or even entirely legal, but…there it was—there _he_ was—in plain text that she could not deny or pretend did not exist. She wasn’t sure what she had been hoping for, and now, as her green eyes traced the letters of his name, she didn’t know what she was to do.

Saren Arterius.

All it would take was a single flick of the wrist, a light brush of a clawed tip, and it would be over, the answers she did and didn’t want to questions she did but didn’t have exposed at long last, made real, no longer a mystery or speculation, but actual fact, as solid as bone, as vibrant as blood, as tangible as flesh…

Vetra felt her mandibles flare, agitation and anxiety stampeding through her veins and adding to the frenzied chaos roiling about in her brain like a solar storm dancing high in Palaven’s atmosphere, the home she had never known because of _that_ name, because of _him_. Anger—brilliant, white, scathing, indignant—burned through her, and for a single moment, one hard _thump_ of her heart inside her chest, she saw clearly the path she was to take. But then the impulse passed and she was left where she had been when she had started this quest—caught between do and don’t, decision and indecision, action and inaction.

Flexing her hands, a whispery slip of a sigh escaped her mouth, whistling over sharp, pointed teeth.

She owed herself this, owed Sid. After what they’d been through, what he had done to them…how they’d had to scrape to get by, fight tooth and nail…it was only right. Her right. Sid’s right. _Their_ right.

And yet…

She couldn’t bring herself to do it, to lightly tap on his name, open him up, open _herself_ up. To what was. To what had been.

Whatever had happened…whatever he had done…it had all transpired long ago, in another galaxy, another life, another time. It didn’t matter anymore. He didn’t matter anymore. Yet she couldn’t let go, couldn’t let _him_ go.

Vetra wasn’t sure why she still cared, why she still let herself wonder. No matter how many times she told herself it was over, done, gone, no matter how many times she brushed off Faye’s worried inquires with a shake of her head and roll of the shoulders, she always found herself back there, in the last apartment the three of them had shared, waiting for him to come back, to open the door, to give her that tired smile he always gave that spoke of truth when his tongue carved lies.

She remembered when it had dawned on her the third day he had failed to return—she and Sid were on their own. She remembered the fear that had threatened to engulf her in a crashing tidal wave, the suffocating grief, the sting of abandonment. She remembered Sidera tugging on her sleeve, just a child, eyes wide, mandibles pressed tightly against her cheeks, confused, lost, innocent. She remembered hiding what she had felt, burying it down so deep inside her that she had hoped that like a flame without oxygen, it would burn itself out, starve to death.

For a time, Vetra’s plan had worked. Forgetting the pain. Refusing to acknowledge it existed. They—she and Sid—had made it, had grown, thrived. Vetra hadn’t needed their mother or father; she had taken care of herself, of Sid, all by her lonesome, and she had managed to convince herself that it didn’t bother her, that she hadn’t ever cared.

And then Faye Ryder had come along and everything had gone to hell.

Vetra became preternaturally still at the thought of the human woman, barely dared to breathe.

Faye Ryder.

Human Pathfinder.

 _The_ Pathfinder.

It was almost funny, how similar the two of them were. Perhaps it was a miracle that they clicked the way they did, having the same driven personality, accustomed to stepping up, to taking the heavy load, bearing all the responsibility. Perhaps that was _why_ they clicked. Perhaps it didn’t really matter, because they were who they were and they were together.

And, because of that, because they were together, Vetra needed to confront her past, confront _him_ , so she could be there for Faye—Faye who had died not once, not twice, but _three_ times, Faye who had lost her mother, Faye who still felt guilt over her father’s death, Faye who had had an integral part of herself ripped from her and had still fought on, Faye who had conquered the Archon for them all, Faye who was in agony every single day of her life now because of the sacrifice she’d made—like Faye had been there for her.

The thought of her love in mind, Vetra made her decision.

Her fingers twitched, eyes darting nervously to the left and then the right, assuring that there was no one hiding beneath the drive core that could spy on her through the thick glass separating the armory from engineering, that the door to the weapons cache was still closed and locked. When she failed to detect anyone hiding in the shadows and the door remained silent and sealed, she ran a quick scan, searching for any bugs or listening devices that may or may not have been placed onboard during the _Tempest’s_ extended stay on Meridian.

Maybe she was being paranoid. Maybe she wasn’t. Regardless, she didn’t need prying eyes or listening ears to discover something they didn’t need to know.

Sucking in a deep breath, she forced her eyes to stay open as she ordered her shaking hand to move forward, told her middle digit to extend and press her father’s name.

It took a second—a heartbeat—for the command to relay from the omni-tool to the ship’s computer, a face she had never thought she’d see again popping up on the screen, weathered and older than she remembered it looking, and—

" _No._ "


End file.
